LOVE the TRUTH that SAVES you

2 Thessalonians 2:10 He will use everything that God disapproves of to deceive those who are dying, those who refused to love the truth that would save them.

This is an incredibly powerful verse I found today that smacked me in between the eyes...

I have alluded to the fact I was healed of RA(Rheumatoid arthritis) coming off of chemo and 13 drugs total last September. Let me just tell you I was a sick cookie, I was even sicker after a year and a half of weekly chemo...I heard a minister say the other day most people don't get sick unless they have been unhappy for a while.

I was unhappy, terribly unhappy, I was in a marriage that was not working despite every effort I made. I had resigned myself that I would never divorce but trust God to work in us both...and then I got sick...and I got really sick...He left when I was diagnosed and although that was devastating at the time it propelled me onward to my healing journey...One day as I read, ..."the power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in you", another reality hit, if that was true and I believed it was, how in the world was I sick....That power would certainly heal me if I tapped into it...I just didn't know how...and I sent out on a quest to find answers...I prayed and simply sought God...

God brought some new people in my life and one night on the phone a man ministered to me about how much God loved me...Honestly, I had forgotten...I don't know how it happened but with all the hardship I had been going through I forgot I was lovable, much less loved by Him...I sobbed quietly...I cried myself to sleep that night not being able to pray, not even really being able to respond, but things were hitting my spirit over and over...I slept peacefully and got up for work...I noticed I was driving in the dark on my way to work...When it had normally taken me 2 hours to get ready for work I was out the door in an hour, I was going to have time to stop and eat breakfast....something was different...then it hit me...I sat back in my car with my arms extended...I was not in any pain, none whatsoever...it was gone I felt no pain ANYWHERE...what the heck...and then I knew, this was indeed a spiritual battle...soaking in Gods love in one night took away every symptom I had....I had to search for more spiritual truth...and that I did...

I repeatedly listened to healing scriptures, I talked to the one man over and over about things, I sought out healing messages by Andrew Wommack...I read the Word, I sat at work and listened to every single healing message I could in between patients...truth infused me along with His love...the chains were breaking, taking medicine make me want to vomit, literally, I felt my body was rejecting it...so one day, being a nurse practitioner myself, thinking it insane to stop meds that keep you going, I traded the medical world for the spiritual. I stopped every med I was on and as much as I needed to I spoke to my body commanding it to come in line, I spoke to my symptoms and commanded them to flee...all I can tell you is they did...I'm a year off all meds and disease free at that....

And then I saw this scripture today..."He will use everything that God disapproves of to deceive those who are dying" Listen I was in every way in a battle and deception was Satan's tool, I was being lied to by the great deceiver and he was using my ex husband, my job at the time, any single avenue he could he used...IN THIS REALM...I was not lovable, not good enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not rich enough, not smart enough, just not enough, not in any single area...I was a zero, I deserved this after all...somehow. I have to say in my heart somehow Satan's message took hold more than Gods message did...Had I not renewed my mind by the washing of the word, had I not allowed those words to penetrate my spirit that night on the phone, I can tell you I do not for one moment think I would be here...Gods message of grace and mercy came in time for me...but I also allowed that truth that would save IN...

We have to make those steps...lately we have lost famous icons, some I grew up with Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and now as of yesterday Patrick Swayze, I don't know what their spiritual conditions were but it says in this verse there is a truth that can save us WHEN we are dying, we just have to accept it....It is so simple it seems unbelievable...and that is part of the deception...None of us deserve Gods love, none of us can do anything to win His grace, Grace comes without effort on our parts or it isn't grace, all we have to do is receive. Receiving changes your life, it can change the direction and the outcome, AND receiving Gods TRUTH keeps us from even dying...powerful stuff to ponder...and do I think the Bible is literal...YES I DO...

I had a woman come into my office last week for a flu shot and miraculously I didn't have any other patients after her...we just started talking Christ crucified, it fell out of both of our mouths...It was one of those times I wondered if I was not entertaining an angel...I'm serious...we hugged about 3 times before she left, we didn't want to stop our conversations and as she left she said something to me very poignant for me personally, she turned to me and said, Lori, don't let those in your life that will deceitfully use you...then she smiled and pointed her finger at me and said, "You know I'm going to see you again"...I turned then followed her out of the room and SHE WAS GONE, I looked thorough the isles of the store...SHE WAS GONE...I just smiled to myself...Wow, it took me a couple feet back...Even if she was not an angel God still sent her to give me a powerful message....DON'T LET DECEIVERS IN....what truth, it almost cost me my life once....may that be a lesson I won't ever forget...and may I always remember and love the truth that SAVES me....to steal the words from one of my favorite preachers...."CAN I HAVE A GOOD AMEN!"

Lets talk Betrayal...

So let talk betrayal for a bit...Heavy topic. Something most of us know a bit about. At some point we will all be betrayed by either parents, siblings, spouses, kids, friends and yes even our jobs. I'm not talking about someone disappointing you or even being fooled by someone here...I'm talking about outright lies, determined deception, and unjust wrong all wrapped into one. I think most of us know every single time in our lives betrayal has hit us...You never really forget that moment when you loose your air and can't find any oxygen available to breath in. That moment when the reality of your situation hits you squarely in the face...remember the nights after when you wake up from sleeping hoping your life was a momentary nightmare and waking up would return it all back to normal? Boy, I don't think I will ever forget those moments or the aftermath...

This past week in taking care of patients somehow this subject came up over and over again. Men who had been abandoned by wives now fending for small children on their own, people fired after 25 years of service with no severance package, men having affairs on their wives (yes they come to me with STD's admitting their infidelity)...I met one man who lost his best friend and wife both to each other...and his best friend told him...I'll take good care of your kids...Man, I think even the most callous of us would wonder how someone could be that cruel...He but all broke down in my office after getting a flu shot telling me of this fresh betrayal...he was still in shock in my estimation...I couldn't help but wonder what road he would take in his journey of dealing with betrayal...This theme was so frequent last week in my patients lives I knew God was trying to tell me something...I had to really stop and formulate some thoughts on it all....

I'm a Christian who believes in living a life well, and out loud for that matter, but what does that mean during times of betrayal, to me?...How to we rise above that storm because it is a tough one to even rise in?... I have decided in writing to birth to a perspective that I will admit is uniquely mine. I'm just going to say something here very poignant here, don't miss it....Not everyone wants to rise above betrayal, some sit right where it takes them and they never move....In a sense they becoming prisoners of their past life, it is an excuse for them to stay out of relationships, to avoid loving deeply, to become selfish, to avoid growth, to avoid venerability. As Christians many of them say, "I have forgiven but I can't forget and I will NEVER..." I wonder if people realize getting stuck there affects them on EVERY level...

Betrayal requires us to go beyond forgiveness..you have to allow yourself to become venerable again where there is no guarantee of the outcome...you have to learn to love your kids growing up and out, who are going to leave you. You have to learn to work hard at your job just because your going to be a good employee. In those secret moments where no one else is looking you clean your office, you organize, you don't sit on the Internet on company time...you work...you become faithful, no one is looking but your being faithful because that is who you are...You have to allow yourself to be open to receiving love and giving love with absolutely no guarantee that you will get anything in return, in fact, you have to do that knowing that more times than not your needs are not going to be met. You have to learn to trust in other peoples goodness, heart and direction. And in it all amidst the sting we feel in our hearts at times we have to continue to hope...Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Betrayal can rob us of any hope of the future for ourselves...if we let it, but we have options...We have options to not let Satan kill, steal and destroy from us. We may have broken relationships in the past, we may at even one time had a heart so dark that we never knew if we would feel warmth or light again, but....if you trust who and what God is able to do, and if you KNOW he purposes a good thing for you, you who He knew would be His child...what can you do but look up and hope expectantly for something better than what you ever had before...God comes to give us LIFE and give it abundantly...

More and more I see life and living as a matter of choice and outlook...if you believe your best is behind, that you will never feel as good as you have in the past, that you will never love as deeply, that you will never be as successful, then from what I see you will have exactly as you believe... You may as well retire, pack it up, and live alone...write you memoir...You have to realize that your life will not from that point will not carry the witness God designed for you, you have to realize that the safety in the confines you have created means you will more than likely be ineffectual in the lives of others. You have to realize you have chosen not to trust God, not to enter into His rest, nor therefore your promised land that awaits, it honestly is a decision most people make, your in a huge company. Finally, you have to admit that you have let Satan win and get his way, that he has stolen, killed and destroyed and your life is that example.

It is fabulous to be saved...I will never ever negate any of the work of Christ in our lives but life abundance does not stop at salvation...it begins there...

You may think I'm talking about something I know nothing about...you would be wrong. DEEP betrayals began very early in my life...in fact I endured one a couple of years ago that shattered me in all honesty, I was completely blindsided by it. The magnitude of how it affected me was palpable for some time...I will just tell you though I am determined to find what God has for me...I know it is a GOOD thing, I am determined to love deeply, I am determined to see myself lovable allowing someone else in to love me deeply, I am determined to continue to be a good friend, to be a good parent, to be faithful at my job. I'm determined to NOT give up any ground but to go and conquer even more, I am determined to have it in me to say to my deceivers, just as Joseph said to his brothers in the Word..."...Do not be distressed and disheartened or vexed and angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me..." Gen 45:5 To me, that perspective IS the very attitude that allowed Joseph the position he held. If he had never believed in the redemption of God, in the goodness of God, in God going before him making him the head not the tail, he would have never found that to be truth...

I hope this blog encourages people who read it to be determined to believe in the goodness of God...I hope this encourages a hope that can not be deterred from the knowledge that "GOD SENT YOU"...In Him, Lori

This was more than a bad decision...

For a while now I have been resting and allowing God to restore my body. Almost a month from today I ended my chemo and the 13 meds I took along with it. For a year now I have been off medication....WHAT a PRAISE...and during this time my body is being restored...To help in that process every now and then I do something for myself that is just kind to pamper this body. I may get my nails done, a massage, a great hair cut etc., I have about one "spa day" a month...it is a fun time for me. I LOVE my spa days...that was until yesterday...

Sigh...When you take chemo you loose hair, it is really tough when it comes off your head but when it leaves your eye lashes and brows, well, that can be tragic as well. My hair is coming along...it is about down to my clavicles and shoulders now...I'm SO stoked about that, but one thing I have to say is my eye lashes are just...well...missing! Missing and short! This summer I met up with my college buddies from 25 years ago...I told one of them..."GOSH, I LOVE your eyelashes!"...she told me they were fake....she had them placed one by one on her original lashes, it is what she does to pamper herself...about once a month....ever since July I have envied those lashes, so this week I decided to do something about it...

I made an appointment after looking at videos online... dreaming about having lashes in place....I was so EXCITED...So I lay down listening to oriental music thinking this is going to be a slamin, relaxin time....and when I got up....I would look NORMAL...that is all I wanted was NORMAL...So, the treatment starts. I can tell you the burn that takes place when that glue goes into your eyeball vs the lash is almost unbearable, talk about wanting to slap someone... jeezzzz.... this was suppose to be relaxing....I was in absolute sheer agony....but I endured as "Kim" kept saying to me...(seriously) "Lori, beauty is PAIN"...It sure was in her chair....Then, she says. "OH, you look like a movie star"! When she handed me the mirror I saw a black line of lashes with swollen RED eyes, not a pretty combination. I couldn't focus, I could barely stand the burn to open my eyes. I couldn't really tell what they looked like. I just wanted to get home...so I go home and I fall asleep for 3 hours I was so exhausted after that treatment...Pain does that to me. When I woke up I was absolutely MORTIFIED...I looked like "Lola Falona" and I'm not joking, the problem was I had to go to work in the morning....It was too late to do anything so I angled them and cut as much of them out as I could, it looked a little better...BUT when I got up in the morning the lashes had already started to lift...my right eye looked like a Hitler eye, my left Lola Falona. Sometimes, I hate that I work with the public...today it was downright embarrassing....After all I am a professional, diagnosing illnesses and writing prescriptions...these people trust me, but yet when they looked into my eyes I looked like I had danced a pole the night before forgetting to remove the evidence. I AM SURE many of them where checking my wardrobe for the dollar bills that should have been cascading out....

All day long I went around and hoped that people didn't notice, but they did, I could tell cause they STARED at my eyes...I called the salon and asked how the heck to get these off, they had to come off TODAY, they told me no one was there that could help me in the salon, that they would be glad to have the manager call me tomorrow (yeah, you do THAT, I'm thinkin). I could go home and use baby oil trying to gently ease them off...

Enjoy the pics of the lashes before they were removed...sometimes a picture is worth 1000 words...Notice how red my eyeballs still were after 24 hours absent glue...I endured 12 hours of humiliation at work at work as well....yes, I am frowning in the first one....As I remove these lashes I'm listening to a Joseph Prince CD made for me called... "Wait! Don't try to help God". Too bad this CD didn't come yesterday....

Fall is here

Fall is here and it has been an amazing summer...

My daughter graduated from high school in May and somehow we got her settled into her first year of college at WKU for photojournalism. I'm so proud of her, who she is not just her accomplishments...

5 days after she goes to school my son gets his first car, BEFORE he got his license, he has his black ride waxed, oil and transmission changed, oil filter, air filter replaced and he tinkered with it all on his own learning as he went...

I had a major surgery, it has helped to put my body back together after effects of chemo. Honestly, I'm still recovering but this has put me on the road to health. Not even when I had children was I able to get away from work for more than 16 days, to have 9.5 weeks off to heal was needed time...I could have honestly used more but it was adequate. I'm still working on balancing home, work, kids, and the endless list a single parent has that you only seem to make a dent into...

I'm starting a running plan tomorrow, it is suppose to take 10 weeks to get you running a 5K but I want to run the Susan Koman race in 6 weeks, we will see how I do...I'm not worried just glad I get to start training...

I met back up with my best college friends I ever had...they are awesome ladies and we still had that bond..it was pretty amazing...

I was able to go to a Clinician Congress meeting meet up with some friends in Ga on the way...I'm so blessed with some truly Godly friends. Absolutely no one can take their place....I carry their love, and wisdom, their hopes and prayers with me, even miles away it surrounds me...

I got to do some deep cleaning to my home that has been neglected over the past couple of years when I was sick. I painted walls, washed woodwork, organized a few closets, threw out boxes of stuff and I have made some nice progress...I don't feel so overwhelmed at the prospect of putting the house on the market after Christmas and having it be sellable in this competitive market...

Those are all big things but there are two things I have yet to mention that have changed my life from the inside out. One is I have been going through an "Esther process". I didn't really know when it started for me but I know I am on the journey...I started an Esther Bible study Jan 15th of this year...so I guess my year is up in Jan best I can figure...I'm still aware I am not there...this is a journey but I am actually enjoying and looking forward to anticipation the next steps...and for those of you who are unfamiliar with the story Esther was an orphan taken with a large pool of girls to see who would win the kings heart...she met the king at 10 months and married him 2 months later. To me the amazing thing about the story of Esther is not that she "won" the king but the position it gave her to save the Jewish people...I still don't know what all this means for me...and I don't believe the point of all this is marriage in a year...BUT it has seemed to be a time of extensive healing with "special treatments". I have been grateful for all that has transpired so far this year and how God has shown me in real time to live above the storms of life and follow peace...I'm just different now and it is a permanent change....

The last thing is and this has been the most significant...I am learning about rest in a completely new way...months ago I realized most of my life I have done what I thought God wanted me to do but I did it in relation to my own strengths and talents. I approached things from the center of me, not Him. Resting for me has been about learning to stop, not rely on my strength or skills but His. I have come to see God as my creator, my children's creator, my friends creator, and my families. He knows them and can deal with their hearts and lives in ways much better than I can. I'm leaning to speak only when He tells me to, to act only when He tells me to, to pray about what I see and honestly give it to Him to deal with. I have never so intimately conversed with Him over my friends and children, my job, my home, and the activities I am involved in as I do now....I am leaning to follow peace and I find at night when I lay down to sleep because of all this my mind is not going in 1000 different directions. I am calm and restful...I trust when I don't know what the details are, I have faith when I see no evidence of progress, and I have a different kind of hope for the future than I have ever had. The love I feel for my friends and family has exploded...and I doubt many of them are even aware...as I'm pretty quiet these days in my blessed assurance....

The final thing is I realize my time in Kentucky is going to be short....I actually dream of mountains...I want to go to Colorado Springs to Bible College there. I'm going to start correspondence school but I want to move....almost every night I dream of mountains in the back drop and when I see pictures of them my heart soars....My son about fell out of the chair when I showed him Andrew Wommack was starting a music school...that boy is killer on his drums...I know he and I are to make this journey...I had to get my girl settled into college, she has dealt with so many abandonment issues I felt it was important for her to feel secure in her new found independence. If I had gone and just left her this summer before she went to college I believe it would have taken years out of some of the intensive investment I put into her. I was not willing to take that chance...like many parents sometimes empowering our kids means we lay down our life for a period of time until the green light is there...surprisingly the light is already yellow...